What the Rain Left Behind
Before light had fully arrived, I stood beneath the western gallery, watching the wall where time leaned inward. She did not appear suddenly; she emerged, as if remembered. A carved figure, her gesture softened into a near-erasure. Her face, nearly gone. Yet something remained whole.
I did not lift the lens. I only stood there, breathing where breath thins into reverence. No birds sang. Even the wind withheld itself.
She no longer belonged to any era. Her beauty was no longer defined by line, but by presence—the quiet radiance of a form too worn for praise, too luminous to be forgotten.
First light on wet stone—
a presence too worn for names,
but not for stillness.
Also in My Journal
Stillness in the Shape of Shelter
A rain-streaked Buddha sits beneath the coiled naga Muchilinda, not to resist the world, but to hold stillness within it. This meditation reveals a print shaped by breath, not description.
The Shelter That Remains
Time gathers around the Buddha as breath, not burden. In this haibun, the artist offers a moment that does not explain itself—it simply remains, unmoving beneath the shelter of silence.
What Light Remembers
Light rests on the Buddha’s chest without revealing him. In this moment of reverent waiting, the image forms as presence—not picture. The serpent shelters, the stone remembers, and the poem listens.
$250
Preah Khan Temple, Angkor, Cambodia — 2020
Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print
Edition
Strictly limited to 25 prints + 2 Artist’s Proofs
Medium
Hand-toned black-and-white archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo — a museum-grade fine art paper chosen for its quiet tactility and reverent depth, echoing the spirit of the temples.
Signature & Numbering
Each print is individually signed and numbered by the artist on the border (recto)
Certificate of Authenticity
Accompanies every print
Image Size
8 x 8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 cm)
Dawn drifts across Preah Khan like a whispered psalm, finding an apsara carved mid-breath, her worn features turned toward a light that has travelled centuries to meet her.
Stone damp with night rain exhales; moss darkens the thresholds; silence grows until it feels almost visible—an unseen veil between the present and something immeasurably older.
I approached barefoot, each muted footfall dissolving into the hush. In that suspended moment her gesture seemed to move without moving, inviting the heart to remember a rhythm older than speech.
Captured on large-format black-and-white film, the exposure lingered, allowing low light to carve shadow like water over stone. In the studio, meticulous hand-toning and classical chiaroscuro extended the devotion, revealing subtleties of grain and breath otherwise lost.
Printed as a museum-grade archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, this work is limited to twenty-five impressions, with two Artist’s Proofs—each signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate.
Welcome her stillness as a quiet threshold within your own space.
Previously titled ‘Apsara I, Preah Khan Temple, Angkor, Cambodia. 2020,’ this photograph has been renamed to better reflect its place in the series and its spiritual tone. The edition, provenance, and authenticity remain unchanged.
